Talk:Hockey stick controversy

Intro

This page could really use an intro that succinctly explains what the controversy is about without needing a great deal of scientific knowledge.Infernallek (talk) 04:17, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

CRU whistleblower relevant

Oi, just on first glance there seems to be a concerted effort to rmv all mention of the CRU whistleblower. Cool yer jets. The topic is relevant. It will get inserted into the article anyway, as time goes on, and will be fully documented. Ling.Nut (talk) 02:56, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Your English fails you. There was no whistleblower. -Atmoz (talk) 03:32, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Time will tell. Ling.Nut (talk) 04:30, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

The Republican response to everything. Even if it makes no sense, like here. -Atmoz (talk) 04:43, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

And the Ends Justifying the Means is the Democrat response to everything. Just 'Hide the Decline'. Veritas —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.122.241.14 (talk) 01:25, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

All you need to know about LN is this [1] William M. Connolley (talk) 08:33, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Assuming that the CRU emails are legitimate, they will affect this article. For instance they show that Mann purposely withheld data from MM and the lied to Nature saying they had all the data to perform their analysis. Also there will need to be some explanation of how "hide the decline" fits into all of this. Is it correct that Mann did not use data that correlated poorly with the tree/temp relationship so as to show a stronger correlation?24.211.252.171 (talk) 07:07, 27 November 2009 (UTC) That comment above is meJfischoff (talk) 07:08, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

The "hide the decline" thing is blown out of proportion. Clearly, if you put all-caps comments in code that say "VERY ARTIFICIAL CORRECTION ... !!" you're marking code as non-final and rudimentary. There's no evidence this was ever used in any paper. The correction refers to a problem known as tree-ring divergence. Basically, while temperatures measured with thermometers have increased considerably since the 1970s, temperatures estimated from tree-rings have declined a little. This is the decline that Terry Jones wanted to "hide" with a "trick" (maybe not the best choice of words.) Whether tree-ring-based reconstructions are good or bad is a different subject altogether. Joseph449008 (talk) 18:54, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

It is also appears in the emails Mann realizes that they did use the data upside down like McIntyre had stated for the 2008 paper. I can find the reference if anyone is interested.Jfischoff (talk) 07:22, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Don't think that even makes sense. But if you have refs, do post them William M. Connolley (talk) 11:31, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Okay I did a little research and discovered that Kaufman already publicly admitted he mistakingly flipped the Korttajarvi series, so I guess that is not news. It is also here, http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1010&filename=1252154659.txt . There is another email that shows Mann working out a strategy on how to deal with a correction to a paper in Science in which I think he is speaking in reference to the Korttajarvi series. I'll try to find that one tomorrow.Jfischoff (talk) 08:53, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Eric Raymond's take. He claims the hockey stick was hard-coded into the program, so it would appear regardless of which data goes in. Unfortunately, he is merely a software expert, and not a professional journalist, so he does not count as a reliable source here at wikipedia. Here is how to make a hockey stick out of any data you like:

valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,- 0.1,0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.170.79.36 (talk) 21:58, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I looked at that source file. The correction is actually not used. The correction array is commented out later. Joseph449008 (talk) 18:56, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Which, of course, doesn't mean it was never used. See Eric Raymond (et al.)'s analysis, here, et seq. Best, Pete Tillman (talk) 17:57, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

But why does his code even matter? At this point all the data has been made available, so his methods can be checked. That is what is important. He could have been using it as a stub to test another part of his program, or who knows. Jfischoff (talk) 00:13, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Wow, you liberal wiki admins are really in a panic, aren't you? Your dogma has been shown to be a fraud. 75.150.245.241 (talk) 14:58, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

What about adding a reference to this take on the matter?

Millions of measurements, global coverage, consistently rising temperatures, case closed: The Earth is warming. Except for one problem. CRU’s average temperature data doesn’t jive with that of Vincent Courtillot, a French geo-magneticist, director of the Institut de Physique du Globe in Paris, and a former scientific advisor to the French Cabinet. Last year he and three colleagues plotted an average temperature chart for Europe that shows a surprisingly different trend. Aside from a very cold spell in 1940, temperatures were flat for most of the 20th century, showing no warming while fossil fuel use grew. Then in 1987 they shot up by about 1 C and have not shown any warming since. This pattern cannot be explained by rising carbon dioxide concentrations, unless some critical threshold was reached in 1987; nor can it be explained by climate models.

It's just one source but it seems to tackle the issue head on. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.134.101.230 (talk) 22:38, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't seem to be directly related to Hockey Stick controversy, or maybe I missing its relevance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jfischoff (talk • contribs) 07:40, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Wegman report addition

There seems to be some debate over this proposed addition

The report claimed that the MBH method creates a hockey-stick shape even when supplied with random input data (Figure 4.4), and argues that the MBH method uses weather station data from 1902 to 1995 as a basis for calibrating other input data. "It is not clear that Dr. Mann and his associates even realized that their methodology was faulty at the time of writing the MBH paper. The net effect of the decentering is to preferentially choose the so-called hockey stick shapes." (Section 4)

The quotation is certainly accurate, though that is of course only the beginning of the debate. Perhaps those who favour removal could explain why? Regards, Jonathan A Jones (talk) 09:46, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

In section 4, Wegman makes few claims of his own, but rather only references M&M. As for the quote, it certainly demonstrates a lack of understanding of the physical reality, as it only affects the blade of the stick - which is known to be essentially correct because of direct measurements. Of course we want to preferably select shapes that conform to measured data - that's the whole point. But the quality of Wegman is neither here nor there, of course. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:54, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm confused here. The quote was taken from the Wegman report, and included in a section full of comments from the Wegman report. This one is unusual only it the fact that an extensive direct quote is used rather than a paraphrase with quoted snippets. Whether or not what Wegman says is True is a different matter, but as you yourself say not one which is relevant to this discussion. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 11:34, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I am also confused. The suggestion that MBH gives hockey stick from red-noise input is the reason I read the Wegman report in the first place, and to my mind it's the single most important issue in the entire controversy. The Wegman report illustrates the result of feeding red-noise to MBH by plotting graphs. They devote a dozen paragraphs, distributed through the report, to explaining why MBH picks red-noise inputs that have upward trends. They argue that such picking is inevitable. So I came to this page and I found thousands of words describing the controversy and only one mention of what I believe is the controversy's central issue. Whether the report is accurate or not is, as already stated, irrelevant. It is not Wikipedia's business to censor the Wegman report for its readers. The fact that the Wegman report spends so much time explaining the random-input response is sufficient reason to declare the issue to the reader.Kevanhashemi (talk) 14:12, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Who asked you to JUDGE if it is correct or not????? Further excerpt removals by you or William M. Connolley will be reported. Your behaviour is unacceptable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.218.59.143 (talk) 13:44, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

The quote is accurate. On the technical grounds that I removed it, I was in error (I'd got it mixed up as a dupl of the PC1 stuff lower down). Sorry, should have replied here earlier. As Stephan says, Wegman is largely a rehash of M&M. We can't repro the entire report, nor should it be given equal space with THe NRC report William M. Connolley (talk) 23:25, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

IPCC Chart and the MBH98 reconstruction

Okay, explain this to me: people criticize the IPCC chart for "being flat from 1000 to 1900" based on "MBH98 being proven wrong" — but the MBH98 reconstruction only starts in 1400. 91.195.78.59 (talk) 12:22, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

ah. You weren't hoping that the crit would be informed and intelligent, were you? William M. Connolley (talk) 08:47, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

To avoid such generalizations, perhaps this page could include a table giving the generations of the hockey stick chart, and the versions of the analysis used to obtain each chart, together with whatever critical reports about that version exist. The opening chart on this page is "The hockey stick graph as shown in the 2001 IPCC report," which might lead people to assume this is the one and only chart being talked about. As to drafting the table, I'm sorry to say that I don't have adequate familiarity with the evolution of the chart to do a good job of it.Kevan Hashemi 03:38, 11 December 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kevanhashemi (talk • contribs)

I agree with this suggestion too. At the same time, could we clear up the current status of the 'controversy'? Maybe reduce the need to wade through the personal opinions of dozens of spokespeople, and give a simple ("takeaway") summary of the final (i.e. current) scientific consensus. What this is is not at all clear from a casual reading of the article. --Nigelj (talk) 13:27, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the entry is a bit long, which clouds the issue. A friend of mine read through it and said as much also. But how to go about cutting it back to quarter-size, when it's such a sensitive issue?--Kevan Hashemi 04:25, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

You carefully apply existing WP policies, like WP:NOTE and WP:WEIGHT, to weed out the irrelevancies. --Nigelj (talk) 10:30, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

There would be little point in composing a table of methods and graphs unless we can add to the table a column that describes the substantial changes made in the methods. For me "substantial change" would be "changes the response to random inputs." I looked for substantial changes, but found none. There appears to be no backing away from the principle component regression analysis that gives rise to the hockey stick graph in response to random data. Someone else who understands the methods better may be able to point out important changes in method and resulting graphs and produce a nice table. I said earlier that the entire page is too long, but re-reading it today, it seems to me that it does its job well enough.--Kevan Hashemi 21:45, 17 December 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kevanhashemi (talk • contribs)

this comment: 'Of course we want to preferably select shapes that conform to measured data - that's the whole point.' seems to completely miss the point of the scientific method, can it be explained please? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.16.108.10 (talk) 21:38, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

If you have measured data and you're trying to measure the trend in the data, then you choose among all the possible shapes the one that most closely fits the data. Why do you think that "[misses] the point of the scientific method?" ---TS 21:43, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Maybe it's worth discussing this. We have 1000+ years of various tree rings. We have about 150 years worth of temperature data. The PCA analysis selects those tree ring series (or combination of series - this is one of the differences between various reconstructions) that show the best correlation between tree ring size and temperature. These selected series are then used with the detected correlation to extrapolate temperatures back to the time we only have tree ring data. Because the blade is in the temperature data, the method will always preferably pick series that also show a fairly consistent increase (or drop - the method looks for correlation, not simple match). If you have random series, you will select those series that randomly rise or decrease during the correlation period. Of course they, being random, will have no trend outside the correlation period, thus producing the shaft of the hockey stick. So it's no surprise that the method will produce hockey sticks from random data. But here is the rub: The method is not applied to random data. We know there is a positive correlation between temperature and tree ring size for certain kinds of trees. To show that the method does not work one would have to feed it structured data and show that it still produces a hockey stick. The surprising thing of the hockey stick is not the blade - that is in the measured temperatures. The surprise is the shaft. To show the method is invalid you must produce shafts from non-shafty data, not shafts from shafty data. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:28, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Stephan, the scientific argument in hockey stick is essentially: "If methodology X produces result Y then non-random conclusion Z". If, when applied to random data, methodology X also produces Y, that directly falsifies the argument. I think this would be an over simplistic characterization of the M&M approach, but it directly rebuts your argument.

I would also point out that the following is false: "We know there is a positive correlation between temperature and tree ring size for certain kinds of trees." There are numerous examples of trees which were selected by dendrochronologists because they were supposed to correlated positively with temperature but which either did not, or which only did some of the time.

The now famous phrase "hide the decline" referred to precisely this. Some of Briffa's trees correlated positively with temperature up until the early 1960s, and then started correlating negatively with temperature. Michael Mann said that the data should be removed or otherwise hidden because "Otherwise, the skeptics have an field day casting doubt on our ability to understand the factors that influence these estimates and, thus, can undermine faith in the paleoestimates." (Mann Sep 22, 0938018124.txt) So the period showing a decline was deleted from the IPCC report, and its deletion rendered difficult to detect in the accompanying graph.

Finally, you say that "To show the method is invalid you must produce shafts from non-shafty data, not shafts from shafty data." Respectfully, I suggest that this is exactly the opposite of the truth. MBH98 is undeniably a shaft created from non-shafty data. That is NOT an adequate basis for claiming that MBH98 is false. It is completely plausible that a multiproxy study could be created from non-shafty data and prove that the temperature over this period of time was shafty, with the non-shafty elements being regional and/or random variations that cancel each other out. There are many good reasons why the Mann series of hockey sticks should be considered flawed, but creating a shaft out of non-shafty data is not one of them.146.115.64.86 (talk) 13:39, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

You kinda get the point, but not quite. Any reconstruction method of any worth will show the blade, since that is the measured temperature record. Any reconstruction method of any worth will not show any trend from random data outside the correlation method. The aim of the PCA analysis is to identify those trees that correlate best with temperature. If that correlation is random, then the result is random and worthless. That can happen, of course. But there is good evidence that the correlation between tree rings and temperature is not random, even if we do not fully understand all aspects of it. For random noise with no long-range self-correlation, on the other hand, the result is always random. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:36, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand where you are going with this.

You seem to assume that the correlation between tree rings and temperature is statistically significant. That is an assumption that must be tested scientifically. "In statistics, a result is called statistically significant if it is unlikely to have occurred by chance." The obvious and most basic test of statistical significance is to determine how likely it is that random processes could have produced an identical or even more significant result. M&M have done that. Specific criticisms may be mounted against their methodology, but there shouldn't be any question that using random data to test the statistical significance of supposedly non-random data is a valid and appropriate methodology. Mann's collaborators did as much in subsequent follow up papers.

One other point: "The aim of the PCA analysis is to identify those trees that correlate best with temperature." Not really. PCA is just a data mining technique. Its goal is to identify a set of orthogonal signals (principal components) constructed such that just a few signals contain the vast majority of the information. In most fields, after applying PCA the various principal components are compared with subsequently generated data to determine if the correlations calculated in the original PCA (between the principal component and the input series) are real or spurious. Mann compares the PCs to temperature to determine which PCs to keep. No input series are discarded. Several input series have a correlation that (if MBH98 is correct) actually imply a negative relationship between local temperatures and average northern hemisphere temperatures. Subsequent Mannian papers did play around with discarding data that didn't fit. But that's not what happens in a PCA. 71.243.119.32 (talk) 16:32, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

NASA Indicates 1934 was the hottest year in North America

I am fairly new to Wikipedia but I have read several news articles that indicate NASA recently corrected the record of temperature data for the last 100 years that indicates 1934 was the hottest year in the US. This would seem to invalidate many of the claims that the last half of the 20th century is the hottest in the last millenia. Even if this is not true, I have not seen any graph in this section that shows 1934 as the hottest year.

Reference:http://www.agiweb.org/geotimes/aug07/article.html?id=WebExtra081607_2.html The issue didn't end there, however. The corrections made almost no difference to global temperature trends, NASA reported, while U.S. mean annual temperatures from 2000 to 2006 were all reduced by about 0.15 degrees Celsius. Most significantly for climate change skeptics, however, the year 1934 now edges out 1998 as the hottest year in the United States. Geotimes Aug 2007, Carolyn Gramling

Has this already been dealt with here on wikipedia. If so I can't find the discussion. LloydofDSS (talk) 22:58, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

• If true, this item might be a decent submission to the Guinness Book of Records. It's hardly relevant to the hockey stick, which is (if I recall correctly) about global average temperature trends. --TS 23:06, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
• Yes, it has been discussed several times already. The NASA GISTEMP data showed 1998 and 1934 in the US with statistically insignificant differences both before and after the correction. It's only if you ignore the uncertainty that the "switch" took place. It does not affect the global temperature reconstruction in any meaningful way. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:14, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

It does indeed affect the "hockey stick" concept which is that the last decade of the XX century is the hottest of all the decades.It is relevant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.82.234.134 (talk) 16:33, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't know about "concepts", but no, it does not affect the hockey stick (BTW, the term is usually used for millenium scale reconstructions, not for the instrumental temperature record). US temperatures are only a small part of the global climate record, and this was only a small correction. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:37, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

The correction pertains to an error that Steve McIntyre discovered several years ago in GISS's version of the US instrumental temperature record. The hockey stick is not an instrumental temperature record, and is unaffected. At any rate the correction was quite small in magnitude.

Speaking as a skeptic who long ago gave up on Wikipedia due to WC's influence, and will now return, I hope that any first time skeptic editors take time to learn, understand and abide by Wikipedia's standards of conduct. Have faith that, through the good faith efforts of all involved [and the reduced role of WC], the articles on global warming will eventually reach a state that accurately reflects our knowledge, and accords due weight [which is not the same as equal weight] to the various points of view.

When in doubt, please err on the side of compromise and politeness. It is of little consequence what any particular article looks like tomorrow morning.

Wikipedia should not be a proxy for the climate blog wars. Anyone from either side who attempts to make it one is bringing discredit to their side.

WC's efforts, IMNSHO, were made in good faith. But they nonetheless brought discredit to him (and unfortunately to Wikipedia). I hope something is learnt from the experience of the past several years.

I suspect that, one year from now, the climate articles will not have changed nearly as much as some might presently expect. 71.243.119.32 (talk) 19:45, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

history missing

I think this article should make clear that the MBH paper was 'controversial' well before the MM03 paper. The HS controversy did not start with their involvement, although the previous criticisms/attacks are no longer cited as much. Soon and Baliunas (2003), Esper et al (2002) for instance were used widely to attempt to discredit the paper. Some of the controversy was about real scientific issues, but much of it was simply politically motivated iconoclasm. CEI at one point had a list of five papers they claimed discredited MBH that actually had nothing to do with it much. This history is important context in understanding the subsequent use and abuse of the Mc+Mc input. 96.250.216.18 (talk) 15:15, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Problem with the whole article

The article, as presently constructed, is narrowly focused on the original hockey stick (MBH98) and on statistical criticisms thereof.

Certainly, because of its prominence in AR3, and subsequent use, the MBH98 reconstruction is especially important.

But there are now a number of hockey sticks, and a number of often cited problems with those hockey sticks that go far beyond the initial M&M paper.

Let me suggest that the article could be improved by moving away from the (more or less) sequential format of the present article.

A possible replacement article might look something like this:

1) A 1-2 paragraph summary, applying a broader focus than the current intro (which is narrow in comparison to even the article's current contents)

2) A list of the various hockey sticks, giving prominent but not exclusive coverage to MBH98, its coverage in AR3, and its subsequent role in discussion about climate change.

3) A taxonomy of the various criticisms made against the hockey sticks, grouping together with each criticism the responses.

I'd like to get comments on this proposed approach71.243.119.32 (talk) 22:11, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

The article doesn't appear to be written from a neutral perspective. The first report's findings are written as indisputable facts. The second report section uses language such as 'claimed' etc. and has a response section regarding what this report found. I'd suggest the language regarding the second report be changed to exclude emotive words such as 'claims', and include words similar to the first report such as 'found'.

Secondly both reports should have a 'response' section in order to maintain a neutral perspective. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.70.142.221 (talk) 22:16, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

External links

I've dumped the whole ridiculously large "External links" section so we can start again by selecting links that really belong there, with careful reference to the External links guideline. It seems to me that the section had become a bit of a dumping ground for stuff that weren't significant enough to make it into the references section. --TS 02:29, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

That was a good idea, but someone has now restored the entire section. I agree it had become something of a dumping ground. So, let's try to sort this out here SPLETTE :] ^{How's my driving?} 16:24, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree with above comments so chopped and brought here for discussion. What among these deserves to be re-instated and why? Which can be used as refs? Or are they already?: Vsmith (talk) 17:13, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

==External links==

• Kyoto protocol based on flawed statistics by Marcel Croc, translation by Angela den Tex, Natuurwetenschap & Techniek, February, 2005.
• Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years NAS Report for the Committee on Surface Temperature Reconstructions (PDF download free)[already in the references Kim D. Petersen (talk)]
• Climate Reconstructions A collection of reconstructions of global and regional temperature for centuries to millennia, from the World Data Center for Paleoclimatology
• Proxy climate data from the World Data Center for Paleoclimatology
• Corrections to the Mann et al (1998) Proxy Data Base and Northern Hemisphere Average Temperature Series. Steven McIntyre, Ross McKitrick. Energy and Environment 14(6) 751-772. http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/trc.html [already in the references Kim D. Petersen (talk)]
• "A Global Warming Bombshell" by Richard A. Muller, Technology Review , Oct. 2004; calls into question famous graph by Michael Mann
• What is the ‘Hockey Stick’ Debate About? McKitrick reviews the criticisms of the Mann hockey stick for a general scientific audience, April, 2005.[already in the references Kim D. Petersen (talk)]
• Backgrounder for McIntyre and McKitrick “Hockey Stick Project” by McIntyre and McKitrick, January 27 2005
• Myth vs. Fact Regarding the "Hockey Stick" — Real Climate
• Was the climate of the 20th century unusual? - essay by global warming skeptics Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas
• Ad hoc committee report on the ‘Hockey Stick’ Global Climate Reconstruction
• Discussion article about the relevance of the debate to climate policy and climate science policy with contributions from both 'sides'
• The IPCC, the "Hockey Stick" Curve, and the Illusion of Experience Washington Roundtable on Science & Public Policy hosted by the George C. Marshall Institute

This still looks like a massive link farm to me. Somebody has restored it "Restore valuable External Links section (minus Mann's homepage which was objected to) so editors can work to make this article NPOV." I don't think any good can come of this. --TS 19:22, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the above. It has ended up as a link-farm. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 19:46, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Article probation

Please note that, by a decision of the Wikipedia community, this article and others relating to climate change (broadly construed) has been placed under article probation. Editors making disruptive edits may be blocked temporarily from editing the encyclopedia, or subject to other administrative remedies, according to standards that may be higher than elsewhere on Wikipedia. Please see Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation for full information and to review the decision. -- ChrisO (talk) 03:02, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

National Academy of Sciences report

This article cites a "pre-publication" report from 2006. The first issue here is that there is no actual ref cited, only [26] and [27] (copy/paste error perhaps?). The second problem is that we're citing a pre-publication report. Was similar content in the final report? If so, shouldn't we cite that? Oren0 (talk) 03:34, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

As far as I know, it's identical to the published version, which is also dated 2006 and available in full here. Pre-publication only seemed to refer to the printing delay. I'm busy right now - if nobody else manages to update the ref, I'll do so in the next few days. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:09, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Wegman report criticisms, WP:PRIMARY, and WP:WEIGHT

Many of the criticisms listed are sourced only to a primary source. Shouldn't there be secondary sources to demonstrate the WP:WEIGHT of these criticisms? Oren0 (talk) 03:53, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes. --TS 03:57, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

The quote "Dr. Thomas Crowley, Professor of Earth Science System, Duke University, testified at the committee hearing, "The conclusions and recommendations of the Wegman Report have some serious flaws." -- would appear to have WP:Weight problems, and quite a bit of this section looks like "piling-on". --Pete Tillman (talk) 19:44, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

This sounds okay to me. If he made that statement in open testimony then it's probably fine to use it here. Presumably the Committee thought his opinion on the matter to be worth hearing. The only concern I would have here is the risk of cherry-picking juicy morsels and not paying due attention to the totality of the testimony. --TS 07:06, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Maybe I'm being unduly harsh here but I interpreted the Wegman report as saying in essence, there are lies, damned lies, and paleoclimatogists. What is unclear to me is why statistics is being brought in here as the attack dog. Scientific disciplines relevant to paleoclimatology include statistics, physics, chemistry, and mathematics. It seems highly suspicious to me that the statistics community has been singled out in this way, especially when their accusation that the paleoclimatologists did not come to the statisticians for help could be turned around: why are the statisticians passing judgment on their own within their narrow focus of pure and applied statistics instead of participating more even-handedly in a larger debate involving all subjects impinging on paleoclimatology? It seems to me that the statistics community is at risk of shooting itself in its own foot here. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 07:18, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Passing judgement on these interdisciplinary brawls and their participants is not really our concern here. We're writing an encyclopedia, not righting the wrongs of the world. --TS 07:23, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

If you know a way to separate the two I'm all ears. Wikipedia aims to present the consensus view, which entails judging bias when it exists, as may be the case here for all we know. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 08:25, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Mann testimony

I reverted Oren0's [2]: the edit summary remove Mann senate testimony. This doesn't mention the hockey stick is bizarre. The relevance of More than a dozen independent research groups have now reconstructed the average temperature of the northern hemisphere in past centuries... The proxy reconstructions, taking into account these uncertainties, indicate that the warming of the northern hemisphere during the late 20th century... is unprecedented over at least the past millennium is obvious William M. Connolley (talk) 20:28, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

More specifically, what is "bizarre" about Oren0's edit is that Mann explicitly refers to the hockey stick phenomenon at the outset, namely as "the anomalous warmth of the late 20th century." "Hockey stick" is not Mann's term for the phenomenon, that came later. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 08:40, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Richard Muller reaction

I posted the following in the "Update" section:

---

In an October 2004 article in the MIT Technology Review, Richard A. Muller, Professor of Physics at UC Berkeley wrote that "the hockey stick, the poster-child of the global warming community, turns out to be an artifact of poor mathematics." "That discovery hit me like a bombshell," Muller said. He continued, "Apparently, Mann and his colleagues never tested their program with the standard Monte Carlo approach, or they would have discovered the error themselves." Source: "Global Warming Bombshell" by Richard Muller, Technology Review, published October 15, 2004.

---

WMC reverted, commenting (in essence) "wrong place" -- which I wondered about, but no other place seemed right either.

It's an important reaction, impeccably sourced, by a scientist with a lot of intellectual horsepower. I'm kinda surprised it's not already in the article. So, what do you think, "Reactions by distinguished physicists"? Or just rename the "Update" section, which is an awkward section title anyway? Or... ? TIA, Pete Tillman (talk) 02:07, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Pete, I reverted an SPA edit but that doesn't mean I support the version reverted to over yours. But on that question, what is the significance of Muller's statement? His biography suggests that he is a distinguished and recently retired physicist, but his relation to this affair seems tenuous. --TS 07:02, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I would have thought that an author of a book on paleoclimatology would be among the few dozen people most qualified to pass judgment on this controversy. Certainly more so than statisticians who have never even written a paper in the field let alone a book. See http://www.amazon.com/Ice-Ages-Astronomical-Causes-Environmental/dp/185233634X/ . --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 09:05, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Seem okay. --TS 09:17, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Your text was in the wrong place, obviously. It isn't an update. More, it says nothing (or substance) that isn't in either the Wegmann report or the NAS report (unless you're particularly fond of the provocative language, of course). It is also incorrect (no, I don't expect you to agree with me or even understand the issue; I'm just pointing out that if you believe without question that M is correct, then your opinion is open to doubt). So in what sense is this an "important reaction"?

Muller is the author of another theory of the ice ages (not part of the std one); see I think Milankovitch effect for the details; no, it doesn't push him nto the few dozen most qualified to comment. [added 03:51, 3 January 2010 William M. Connolley]

WMC, you clearly don't agree with Muller. But I hope you will grant that he is a distinguished physicist who has worked in climate science, and done quite a lot of other interesting earth and planetary science as well. Perhaps more pertinent to his take on this controversy, he appears well-grounded in mathematics and statistics, as one would expect of a first-rank physicist. My remarks that follow will (hopefully) answer Tony's question as well.

One of the things that's always struck me as odd about this affair is, why did Mann & colleagues go so far astray in pretty elementary statistical work? As it happens, for my MS thesis I used a similar statistical technique to handle noisy geochemical data, and from reading Mann et al's HS papers, it's pretty clear to me, these fellows were using canned routines without any real clue as to what they were doing. I'm no statistical whiz (and very rusty now), but I'm pretty sure I understand geostatistics, and its pitfalls, better than (in particular) Mann seems to.

So Muller's remarks really hit home for me, and I think for other statistically-literate outsiders who've looked into the affair. These guys were fundamentally clueless on how to use statistics to solve real geological problems, and boy does it show. So, yes, Muller's remarks are important, and provocative, and he knows his stuff. And we're certainly not using my ruminations here....

As to where to put Muller's stuff, somewhere in or near the Wegman section, I would think, since he's basically supporting Wegman's conclusions. Best regards, Pete Tillman (talk) 02:35, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I concur that the material belongs somewhere in the article. Where is a good question, as well as how it is written. While there is no doubt that Mann et al, using their methods, clearly found a "hockey stick". However, unaffiliated scientists reviewing his work have been able to duplicate the "hockey stick" using random data as the source in place of Mann's temperature data. Perhaps Dr. Muller's insight could be part of such a section? [cut personal attack --Kim D. Petersen (talk)] --Knowsetfree (talk) 04:27, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Enforcement Request

I am appalled at the amount of wanton edit waring on this article since the probation has been implemented. Rather than contribute to the problem I have decided it is better to simply ask for blocks for anyone that has reverted anything that was previous contested in a manner consistent with this warning on a different article: [3]. I mention this not because I think it is binding here, but rather to make the point that these sanctions need to be applied uniformly across all of the affected pages.

The enforcement request can be found here. --GoRight (talk) 09:24, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

For the record, this request was dismissed and GoRight was warned not make further frivolous requests. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:40, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Correction, that was "frivolous or vexatious" requests. --GoRight (talk) 03:56, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Editing restrictions?

Are there any applicable editing restrictions on this page related to the climate change probation? --GoRight (talk) 03:55, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Editing restrictions are (or should be) entered into the log, which can be reached by typing the rather unwieldy shortcut WP:GS/CC/L. --TS 04:17, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I guess I am being too terse today. I note that some pages are under a consensus only restriction, some are on a WP:1RR restriction, etc. My query is meant to ascertain whether there are any such special restrictions associated specifically with this page? One has to be careful now. --GoRight (talk) 04:54, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Try WP:GS/CC/L#Log of sanctions. The 1RR on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is there. Obviously nobody should be wading into the middle of disputes and performing problematic edits. --TS 06:20, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Just to clarify, that's the only 1RR sanction in force at the moment. I suppose this posted at that page? [checks] Yup. --Pete Tillman (talk) 17:10, 4 January 2010 (UTC)